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I have a better alternative. There aren't that many commonalities left in America these days except for a common language (and not even that in many places), so instead of trying to "focus on commonalities", let's agree to go our separate ways and split the country up into some smaller, more manageably-sized units. This country is too large, and history has shown that large nations and empires never last that long, and end up breaking apart or collapsing due to infighting and corruption. Infighting and corruption are about all that's going on in our government these days, so it'd be better to amicably break up now before things get really bad and some people riding elephants invade.

The "true red-blooded patriots" can think whatever they want, but all their willpower isn't going to overcome basic economics. If the economy collapses, no amount of patriotism or talk of "united we stand!" is going to make it better. Heck, we even have "red-blooded patriots" in many states doing things that are pretty close to outright rebellion against the nation and federal government: many states have passed laws forbidding themselves to follow the Real ID Act, Montana passed a law saying they can mak

The "true red-blooded patriots" can think whatever they want, but all their willpower isn't going to overcome basic economics. If the economy collapses, no amount of patriotism or talk of "united we stand!" is going to make it better. Heck, we even have "red-blooded patriots" in many states doing things that are pretty close to outright rebellion against the nation and federal government: many states have passed laws forbidding themselves to follow the Real ID Act, Montana passed a law saying they can make machine guns if they want, stamped "Made in Montana", as long as they aren't sold out-of-state, plainly in direct opposition to BATFE policy, Arizona and the federal government are suing each other over immigration enforcement, etc. It seems like the "red-blooded" ones are the ones itching the most to cause division (not that I disagree with causing division; obviously with these and many other issues, Americans in many regions simply can't agree on anything, so I think it's better to simply break apart so that they don't have to agree).

Or we could return to the Federal model the US is actually based on instead of this rule from Washington thing we're doing now. Return the States to their rightful place and make the national government small as it should be. Then people can move to the State that best reflects their view of the world. That is how things were supposed to be in the first place, no?:)

The problem is with interstate commerce. I know libertarians love to blast that part of the Constitution, but it does serve an important purpose. For example, maybe Mississippi decides they want absolutely no environmental protections. Corporations will move their factories there, and start dumping their toxic wastes into the river. Only now the people in New Orleans have to suffer for their neighbors choices. If the states were each independent countries, that sort of thing would lead to serious border conflicts, sanctions, and maybe even war. Instead we have the federal government to unite us and pass nationwide standards. We're already in a race to the bottom with third world nations. The last thing we need is to start a race to the bottom between ourselves.

Or how about immigration? What if Tennessee decides that they want to let in all comers? Do we build a wall around the state, station guards at every border crossing?

Or the FCC? As nice as it might be to have different radio standards in Philly, Newark, NYC, and Stamford, the laws of physics don't allow it.

Entitlements might be better left to the state, but it would be a bureaucratic nightmare tracking people's moves across the nation (so that someone doesn't spend most of their life in a low tax state and retire in a high entitlement state).

There are some cases where we would be better off giving the states more control, but in many ways the old federal model simply can't work in the modern world.

Teamwork is socialist. In a capitalist society, we're *supposed* to be fighting one another. We don't come by optimal results by joining together - we do so by pitting everyone against one another and eliminating all but the strongest.

The Roman Empire lasted in some form until the fall of Constantinople. Also, "managably sized units" is not a good reason to split a nation--delegation and limited local governance is possible, and in fact is embodied in our systems of state and local government. Caesar noted that Management of the few was generally the same as management of the many, IIRC. You can have a million people in a city, they have some interests that will be different than those in the countryside, and you need a way to reconcile those interests into a common social contract when it is appropriate--failure to do that raises transaction costs and take value away from pretty much everyone.

In addition, small government *does not* protect against corruption. State governments are far more corrupt than the federal government.

Also, "managably sized units" is not a good reason to split a nation--delegation and limited local governance is possible, and in fact is embodied in our systems of state and local government.

What we have here is a conflict between theory and practice. In theory, it shouldn't matter how large the government is, because you can break it up into smaller regional units that govern themselves to a large extent, and let the top level government only handle affairs that concern the entire nation as a whole. In practice, it doesn't work. The national government draws more and more power to itself over time, increasing its size and duties, until every single issue has to be decided on the national level instead of allowing different regions to do things differently. Then lots of infighting results because people from different regions with different local cultures can never agree on all the issues and constantly fight over them at every election, continuously changing the law back in forth as different groups gain a slight majority and have the ability to alter the law, and do this instead of focusing on new issues. Meanwhile, as "power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely", the greater concentration of power in the larger nation and its national government draws more corruption (since obviously, that corruption has higher potential profit; what good is it going to do for you to bribe some government official in Andorra, for instance?), and corruption increases exponentially.

In addition, small government *does not* protect against corruption. State governments are far more corrupt than the federal government.

Right, that's why corporate lobbyists spend so much time and money there trying to pass laws and get defense contracts. Try again. Smaller governments have less potential for corruption to be profitable for those who engage in it. As I said before, what good would it do you to bribe someone in Andorra's government? If you're some corporate lobbyist, not much, because there's not many people there and not much money flowing through it, compared to the USA.

The Roman Empire lasted in some form until the fall of Constantinople.

It's hard to say the Roman Empire "lasted" after the city of Rome was sacked. Yes, another smaller empire lasted for some time after the fall of Rome, but it wasn't the Roman Empire, it was an offshoot of it in a different region. That would be similar to the USA collapsing, and Alaska continuing to call itself "the USA" even though the rest of the nation either became smaller independent nations or were annexed by Mexico or Canada. Just like USA/Alaska, Constantinople wasn't even originally part of the Roman Empire, it was conquered later when they grew really large. AFAIC, you can't have something called "the Roman Empire" if it doesn't include the Italian peninsula and most especially the city of Rome. It reminds me of that little rebel Catholic Church organization that calls itself "the real Roman Catholic Church" even though no one else thinks they are.

China has frequently fractured into a patchwork of local states run by strongmen. This happened as recently as the 1920s during the Warlord Era, but has been happening every few centuries since the decline of the Zhou Dynasty. Besides this, China has been home to many minorities which have occasionally been independent. Tibet and Turkmenistan are the most obvious modern examples.

Russia effectively didn't exist until the collapse of the Mongol Empire(s), and could even be argued as a primary effect of the power vacuum created by that collapse after the previous consolidation. The Rus simply reconsolidated in an imperial conquest, and those holdings were reconsolidated a second (or third, depending on your perspective) time when the communists took over. However the identities of the locals were largely unaffected even over the centuries of Russian and earlier Mongol rule, which is what lead to the many breakaways after the USSR's collapse.

The take away to these lessons from history is that the 'empire' only lasts so long as the people at the core of it have the will and the power to rebuild it over and over. That is the case with China and Russia (to a far lesser extent). It *almost* happened with Rome, people are largely unaware that the Byzantine Empire was on the verge of a massive campaign to retake the West that was only scuttled by the cruel twist of the arrival of the plague from Asia. Hard to say how different history might have been if such an effort were successful.

While I agree with this in principle I can't support it. With 50 states we now have far too many voices for any to be heard above the roar, this country worked much better when there were 13 states and even then it took years to amend the constitution. With the 50 we now have it is impossible, so government has abandoned the amendment process and instituted bureaucratic decree. The existing states should band together in regional clusters and those clusters should be governed by the national government. I can't support that happening though because I would end up living in Jesusland.

Oh bullshit! you ain't sticking the hogs with them damned longhorns, what are you nuts? Hell we don't want them shitkickers either, you give them to Mexico! We'll take TN and MS along with OK and LA thanks ever so!

As for the TSA what is killing their asses is the YouTube. Being giant douchebags really isn't easy when everyone and their dog and their dog's squeaky toy have a camera in their phone, and its kinda hard for a congress critter to stand up for the TSA when all of their constituents have been passing around links to the latest TSA goon attack, like the screaming 3 year old or the 96 year old they went after for having a soggy nappy.

That is why i've been plastering links and writing my congress critters having a royal shitfit over the blacklisting of websites. We finally have a way to watch the watchers thanks to 24 hour cell phone cameras so its less likely that a goon, be they police or TSA or anyone else for that matter can pull shit without everyone seeing it. if they can just pull the plug on any website it would be too easy to make those 'bad old videos" go away. does anybody here believe the MSM would have done squat about the TSA? nope YouTube and a thousand other video sites to the rescue!

The TSA was formed in 2002, so unless you were pre-emtively complaining there's no need to keep going after nine years.

Huh? It's almost 2012, so if TSA formed in 2002, it's certainly over nine years. I don't know what you count as formation, but the TSA counts it from the Aviation and Transportation Security Act of 2001. As far as preemptive complaints, I have no idea how old you are, but I was complaining about airport screening being stupid for at least a decade before 9/11. Before TSA it was a bunch of low paid hoodlums taking revenge on well off travelers. Long lines and rude behavior were common. We were told TSA would be more professional. They are, but they're more professional at being jerks.

Must be an election year coming up, because a bunch of Congressmen are introducing bills that would do shit about stuff we've been complaining about for the past several years. But, these bills will never make it out of committee or be passed.

Must be an election year coming up, because the government's actually doing shit about stuff we've been complaining about for the past... two, three years?

Unfortunately this is about par for all government when there are problems. It takes a very long time to effect change. Even if directors want to change something, when there are too many layers of management between the person who wants the change and the person who actually is supposed to implement it, and if those at the bottom actively do not want to change then it's really hard to get to the reasons why something fails. Each level of management, as they write their reports and reviews will sugar-coat what they need to, which means a cumulative sugar-coating by the time the reviews are distilled to the top.

It doesn't matter who's in power either, this is normal. It's also normal at very large companies, where too many layers allow whole divisions to run messed up for a long time before it manifests fatally, though at least companies have to make money. Government doesn't have that trouble.

It was the one who never accomplished anything useful, spent most of his presidency fighting stupid political battles over inconsequential shit, and will be remembered by history books mainly for the magnitude of his failures. That's the one, right?

Yeah, but despite being created to pay for the Civil War, and then being found unconstitutional, they tossed in the 16th amendment to keep the IRS going. Wonder how long it will be before a TSA amendment is passed. "For the good of the Homeland and Security unto the people under its care..."

No, the Department of Homeland Security needs the TSA. It operates the TSA as a distraction for the American people so they can quietly erode our liberties without being bothered. Do you think its an accident that they pick on a 84 year old lady in adult diapers? Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. Nothing to see here, please move along. Look! Shiny!

"Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship....voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."

Yeah, but despite being created to pay for the Civil War, and then being found unconstitutional, they tossed in the 16th amendment to keep the IRS going. Wonder how long it will be before a TSA amendment is passed. "For the good of the Homeland and Security unto the people under its care..."

You don't need amendments anymore. You'll never see another amendment to the Constitution again, because all you need are some judges that will rule your way. Changing the Constitution is hard, and it was supposed to be hard. It's much easier to get some judges to declare that up really means down. This is the danger of the whole "living Constitution" idea. If the Constitution is as pliable as putty, then it's really just a matter of whose hands the putty is in.

Not too surprising. The IRS just takes our money. I can respect that, to a degree. Congress not only takes it, they also spend it, and then tell us how we can and cannot spend whatever is left over. And then they form the TSA to molest us and take naked pictures of us in airports.

The TSA is the only agency hated more that the IRS. Considering the head start the IRS had, that is an impressive achievement!

Agreed. A big reason I hate TSA never seems to be reported on: theft. I'm a frequent flyer (several times per month) for over a decade now, so I have a good sample size here. Ever since TSA was created, I've regularly had shit stolen from my luggage. I never had this happen to me a single time before TSA. It's so bad I never check in my bag unless I absolutely have to, but sometimes I have no choice. Last year, for example, when coming home for Christmas, some jackass in TSA stole all the Christmas presents I bought for my family that I had to put in my check-in bag. I've given up on reporting this because they just don't care. I've never had any thing stolen out of my luggage returned to me and never been given any indication that there was any follow up. I doubt they even report it for their statistics.

This was brought up on here once before and there was a good solution to this. Go get yourself a gun carrying license first. Get a gun or simply by a part of a gun, like the barrel. Get a gun carrying case with a lock. Also get a heavy duty lock for your bag. When you travel and don't want something stolen from your bag, bring the piece. Tell the counter you are checking a gun (part). Even gun pieces are treated like a whole gun. If TSA wants to check the bag they will need to do it while in front of you, after that you can lock the suit case and they won't be able to open the suitcase after that. This is the gist of it.

I don't know how posted this, but I read it on here and found it to be a very good idea.

And on a more serious note, I think Giuliani or Kelly made trips out west to show other police organizations some of their tactics (don't have the article link handy), so it seems that the NYPD is in fact a model to some.

How many terrorist have they caught? The same amount as my pet rock. Comparing the 'terrorist caught/money spent' ratio of pet rocks vs. the entirety of the TSA, if I were a venture capitalist I'd be looking for the next bright mind to bring these geological vanguards to market. They'd do at least a good job as the TSA, cost less, and as an added bonus airports might be more enjoyable. And they don't infringe on civil liberties. And they don't pretend to effect powers they do not really have. And they will not unionize.

Number of terrorists caught by the TSA - ZERO. Number of US Constitutional violations are literally countless and purposely obfuscated. Number of government agency charters which were illegally violated with the creation of Homeland Security, ALL of whom Homeland Security now oversees. Would Homeland Security been able to stop 9/11 today? Absolutely not! The SOLE purpose of Homeland Security is dirty tricks, dirty politics, funnel massive funds into the top 1%, and to "legally" violate the US Constitution.

If our Founding Fathers were alive and in power right now, most of the US government would literally be hanging from a tree or stand in front of a firing squad right now. And that's not hyperbole.

If you support Dems or Republican parties, you hate America and spit on our Founding Fathers.

They'd do at least a good job as the TSA, cost less, and as an added bonus airports might be more enjoyable. And they don't infringe on civil liberties. And they don't pretend to effect powers they do not really have. And they will not unionize.

You forgot to mention a pet rock will only sexually assault you if you want it to.

I really think that there is someone orchestrating these attacks with a bizarre sense of humour. He gets some idiot to put a bomb in his shoe and now you need to take your shoes off to fly. So then he gets another idiot to put a bomb in his underwear and now full body scans. I can't wait to see what's next.

I think it was Mao who said that if your enemy is not by nature oppressive, you must force him to become so. Somebody has read the book.

The goal of the TSA isn't to catch terrorists. Only the most egregiously stupid terrorists would be caught by the TSA.

The goal of the TSA is to discourage terrorists from even trying. The TSA's effectiveness could be measured not by "how many terrorists are caught" (zero) but by "how many terrorists have succeed" (also zero).

The tiger-repelling-rock analogy is specious: you know for a fact that there aren't any tigers around here. You don't know how many terrorists there are. Zero? Ten? Ten thousand?

It's not zero. While the TSA hasn't caught any, the FBI has. How many of those terrorists would have attempted to use airplanes, if the TSA hadn't been there? I honestly can't tell you: most of the ones the FBI has caught were ass-clowns who were probably going to blow themselves up before they left their driveways. And we don't know how many terrorists gave up before they even started.

What's perplexing is why they haven't shifted to softer targets. The TSA, overzealous as it is, makes airplanes too hard to attack, but there are millions of other, better targets. A bomb on a commuter rail would cause a whole lot of mayhem with a far lower chance of getting caught. The TSA can't claim credit for that.

But I don't doubt that they deserve at least a little credit for the zero attacks on planes since 9/11. We know at least some wanted to try.

What's perplexing is why they haven't shifted to softer targets. The TSA, overzealous as it is, makes airplanes too hard to attack, but there are millions of other, better targets.

It's not perplexing. Terrorists act by (duh) creating terror. Body count is simply a means to that end. The fact is, we've done such a great job at overcompensating, we're doing their job for them. We're still terrified. Heck, simply saying you're going to build a mosque makes half this country pee their pants!

Ah, but how many of the guns caught by TSA were caught *only* because of TSA's procedures? Travelers had to go through metal detectors and their baggage through x-ray machines prior to TSA - did you think the prior security goons never caught any guns and knives being brought to the airport? I recall in pre-TSA days they'd always find my little pocket knife and check the length. (Back in the day you were allowed small blades)

I'm curious to know the % of those guns, etc. that were found using baggage X-Rays and metal detectors. You know, the two things we already had and used before the TSA existed. Remember, back when air travel wasn't a total clusterfuck pain in the ass.

What exactly is this obession with 'sharps' on board anway? What exactly could a 'terrorist' do if they managed to smuggle a hunting (or x-acto) knife on board? I can see the value of banning guns and bombs - They could take down an aircraft - But what exactly can someone do with a knife? I realize the 9/11 hijackers took the planes down with boxcutters, but the paradigm has changed... If someone stood up with a knife today, not only would they not get into the cockpit, the other passengers would beat them to death with the drinks trolley.

TSA catches on average about 5 guns PER DAY at airport screenings, and that's not including knives, explosives, and other prohibited objects.

So if they are 99% effective at finding guns, that means that 18 guns/year are slipping through their screening.

Besides, that statistic tells us nothing about whether or not TSA is protecting us.

How many of those gun owners were purposely trying to hide them and smuggle them on the plane versus someone like an off duty cop who left one in his briefcase, or someone who left his pistol in his backpack after a day on the shooting range? Just because someone takes a gun on the plane doesn't mean they are going to use it.

TSA may be catching 100% of the guns that law abiding citizens accidentally tried to carry onboard, but maybe they are catching 0% of the guns that are purposely smuggled onboard.

I accidentally carried a 10 pack of single-edged razor blades on several cross country flights when I forgot they were at the bottom my carryon backpack. If TSA found them, they would have added it to their statistics of how safe they are making you by keeping sharp objects off the plane even though there was never any safety concern. Of course, if I really wanted to take a razor blade onboard, I'd just slip a couple in next to my laptop battery and TSA would never know. (I know that for a fact because a friend who bought an old laptop on eBay found that the seller had done just that to secure a loose battery (except they were double edged blades, not single edged), and he carried it through security several times)

Please outline a plan to keep dangerous people/articles off of planes with near certain precision without invasive searches.

1) Continue to screen, but limit screening to items that are actually dangerous. Bomb? Dangerous. Gun? Dangerous. Swiss Army Knife? Not dangerous. T-Shirt with Arabic writing? Not dangerous. In other words, screen at year-2000 level.

2) Employee educated, intelligent screeners and allow them to exhibit common sense (witness Israel). Granny with a jar of homemade pasta sauc

By directing the billions you're wasting screening Granny's pasta sauce jar towards law enforcement so you catch the underwear bomber before he even arrives at the airport.

If he does make it to the airport, you catch it by profiling him for special extra screening. So you don't screen granny, but you do screen me (44 year old darker skinned guy, non US-citizen, with beard).

Exactly. I remember reading an interview with an Israeli security screener. In a nutshell, he said that "Once I trust you, I'll let you on the plane with dynamite. It's not dynamite I'm screening for - It's you." I experienced Israeli security once - I felt like I was interacting with a highly skilled, trained professional. I've never felt that way at an American airport.

then I'd have to point to Israel, who has faced terrorist threats much longer than we have. Their system is not cheap to implement or easy to scale up since it hinges on a highly trained workforce (and no one will get rich from hardware sales), but it seems to work well. Those selected for secondary screening may find it much less pleasant than TSA's most invasive screening, and it may even go beyond the bounds of constitutionality)

So, other than it being impractical, expensive, more invasive, and unconstitutional, it's the right solution? Brilliant.

Who said it's impractical? And is it more expensive than the billions we now waste on TSA? I don't know the answer.

It's more invasive to some people while being less invasive to the rest. Your 80 year old grandma who can barely stand up from her wheelchair is not likely to get groped.

I said it *may* be unconstitutional, perhaps Israeli tactics could be molded to fit within our laws. And are the TSA's forced groping and non-tested X-ray machines really legal?

Puh-lease. Al Qaeda doesn't have to do shit to us anymore. Just have someone whisper "mosque!!" and you get half the country peeing their pants.

If anyone wanted to cause megadeaths in the US, I can roll off the top of my head dozens of ways not involving airplanes or airports. Yet there hasn't been anything like that, nothing even hinting at that. You know why? Death is not what they're after. They're after terror, and they won. They won and those like you are letting them keep their victory by cowering like the little yellow bellied chickenshit you are.

If you were in the Marines, you better not show yourself around them. They'll wonder where your balls went. Anyone too afraid to take a plane without subjecting everyone to a pre-flight colonoscopy isn't someone who belongs anywhere near our armed forces.

The headline might as well read "Agency universally reviled as useless, degrading, expensive, criminal, nobody has the nerve to do more than nibble around its edges."

If what they've done so far has earned them only these relatively feeble stabs at powers they mostly just took during their time anyway(they didn't used to dress up in cop costumes or grope people on the record), exactly what would they have to do to earn a reorganization, or even a replacement? Execute a randomly chosen passenger once a shift, just to show the terrorists our resolve?

I can't imagine what kind of deliverable they can actually provide -- it's not credible to claim they've prevented all terrorism, and unfortunately where maybe they have, I'm sure the FBI/NSA/CIA wants it kept totally quiet so they can do whatever counter-terrorism investigation they do, keeping the TSA from taking any kind of credit.

What they need to do is have credible claims for effectiveness AND be as totally invisible as possible. You should "go through security" at the airport with less impact than g

That actually is kinda funny. If you were following Usenet/CompuServe at the time those seasons aired, especially the Night Watch ones, people were actually complaining that it's "unreasonable" and that "Stuff like that would never happen in AMERICA".

And JMS' responses to them were that these things all happened fairly recently (at the time they were references to the Red Scare and McCarthyism-era politics).

He also said that he knows it's not likely that it'll ever happen again because we're so vigilant and attached to our freedom now.

The TSA is a bureaucratic, money-sucking nightmare that entirely fails to live up to the promises of the politicians who created it. It is incompetently managed and its policies are inept, ineffective, capricious, opaque, invasive, disrespectful, and I would argue they are also fundamentally unconstitutional.

All that said, though, the question remains: if the TSA were to vanish overnight, what would take its place? What SHOULD take its place? These are not easy questions to answer--if they were, we'd be on that path by now, but instead the Kabuki dance that is this "security theater" gets more bizarre by the day. The reality is that certain fundamental questions of how best to address and ensure basic passenger safety without infringing on essential personal liberties remain unanswered, let alone the question of how to do it efficiently (both in terms of financial cost and human resources). Of course that is not to say no ideas have been proposed, but the point is that we've let the genie out of the bottle and we cannot go back to the way things were done before. The TSA may or may not have to be dismantled, but something must serve the function of providing basic safety. After all, our corporate overlords who pull the puppet strings of our politicians, can't seem to stop meddling with foreign countries, so it seems unlikely that the rest of the world will soon stop hating us.

It's not the TSA so much as it is the DHS. It's inherently problematic to give an agency responsible for both defining the problem and solving it. It's not surprising that the scope has been ever increasing when decreasing the scope would result in layoffs and budget cuts for itself.

The TSA is a bureaucratic, money-sucking nightmare that entirely fails to live up to the promises of the politicians who created it. It is incompetently managed and its policies are inept, ineffective, capricious, opaque, invasive, disrespectful, and I would argue they are also fundamentally unconstitutional. All that said, though, the question remains: if the TSA were to vanish overnight, what would take its place? What SHOULD take its place? These are not easy questions to answer

That's a very easy question to answer. We go back to the same system we had before 9/11. When you went through a simple x-ray and metal detector, were allowed to take liquids through, and your family could accompany you to the gate.

Security was plenty sufficient back then. Case in point, the terrorists didn't manage to sneak guns or bombs in, they had box cutters. There are two fundamental changes that we've already made which plugs the 9/11 security hole: cockpit doors are locked and passengers no longer believe sitting down and waiting for the hijacking to be resolved through negotiations by the authorities is the best strategy. A few people armed with knives can't subdue a whole plane of passengers or take over if they can't get into the cockpit.

...that zooming about in a metal box miles above the ground is an inherently unsafe thing to do?

And yet, it is still by far the safest form of vehicle travel.

Moreover, you have to keep in mind the dangers of these security measures. For example, while the risk of death due to the virtual strip search machines may statistically be very low, it is ironically almost equal to the risk of death due to terrorist action bringing down the flight. And of course, as about a million people with two brain cells to rub together have figured out by now, if you have big queues waiting to go through security, you're actually creating a bigger target for anyone who does brings explosives to the airport than a plane itself, and obviously you're doing it before the security checks.

It is never going to be 100% safe... never ever ever.

That is true. It is, however, something like 99.99999% safe, depending on how many miles you count for an average journey (based on NTSB stats for average deaths per passenger-mile). How about we just live with the facts that flying isn't really dangerous compared to many other things we do all the time and that the terrorist threat is tiny compared to many other things that cause actual harm all the time, and we start spending our time and money fixing real problems instead?

I've noticed recently that some people like to quote US budget figures for the wars/homeland security to show how costly these things really are and put them in perspective. I'm waiting for the infographic that compares those figures with what it costs to save a life through better road safety, natural disaster management, medical research, public education, etc. You'd think one good cover on, say, Time magazine would make the point enough to get serious public debate going, but no-one in the media seems to be biting, for reasons I never quite understand.

Federal Agencies never die, they just get re-spun with more responsibility so they can then complain for more funding when their current responsibilities are abandoned.

The examples given in this slashdot article are not cuts, they amount to normal civil-servant bashing and behavior. The only thing surprising is that the unionization of TSA workers isn't the most frightening thing imaginable.

Of course not, that is not how bureaucracy works. For those who have never seen it, here is a story that explains how bureaucracy works:
Once upon a time the government had a vast scrap yard in the middle of a desert. Congress said, "Someone may steal from it at night." So they created a night watchman position and hired a person for the job at minimum wage for a budget of $25,000.
Then Congress said, "How does the watchman do his job without instruction?" So they created a planning department and hired two people, one person to write the instructions and one person to do time studies. Departmental budget $150,000.Then Congress said, "How will we know the night watchman is doing the tasks correctly?" So they created a Quality Control department and hired two people, one to do the studies and one to write the reports. Additional Department budget $200,000. Then Congress said, "How are these people going to get paid?" So they created two positions, a time keeper and a payroll officer, then hired two people. Additional Departmental budget $300,000Then Congress said, "Who will be accountable for all of these people?" So they created an administrative section and hired three people, an Administrative Officer, an Assistant Administrative Officer, and a Legal Secretary with office space, travel allowance, and yearly training seminars. Additional Departmental budget $750,000.Then Congress said, "We have had this entire department in operation for one year, and we are $1,400,000 over budget. We must cut back." So they laid off the night watchman.

The FBI is getting involved by changing its definition of rape in a way that might expose the TSA's 'enhanced pat-down' screeners to prosecution.

Stop the presses. When did enforcement agencies get to write laws? Are they just changing the in-house definition? So it'll be like "FBI internal policy says I have to arrest you, but you'll get off scott free because the law says something different"? This is not a good thing. It sets a precedent that things like "standing in a public area" could be made "illegal" per internal FBI mandate, allowing them to arrest you for literally anything over and over again, while never facing a jury. I'm all for ending the TSA feel-ups, but this is *not* the way to do it.

A bill to force the TSA to reduce its screening of active duty U.S. military members and their families was approved unanimously by the House of Representatives.

This is silly. Either you do screening, or you don't. Complete ineptness of the TSA aside for argument's sake, if you take the concept of operations for the TSA at its face they're not just looking for active and willing attackers, they're also looking for unwitting attackers. (That's why you screen Grandma in her wheelchair -- How does Grandma know nobody slipped an explosive onto her person or possessions somehow without her realizing it?)

If you're allowing military through, why not the 800,000 people with TS clearances? Or police? Or...? And how do you know that the person is a member of the military? And even if they are, it's not a foregone conclusion that they're automatically safe. (Nidal Malik Hasan? Hasan Akba?)

Screen everyone or screen no one. You're hard-pressed to make a rational risk argument if you're not doing that.

Flying is statistically safer than driving. People like me are choosing to drive long distances because they do not want their children subjected to enhanced pat-downs (or is it pats-down?). Statistically, more people driving longer distances should cause more injuries and death due to traffic accidents. Any slashdotters have an estimate of the expected increase in fatalities, or perhaps an effect that might counter this increase? Either way, I wish they'd just respect the 4th amendment.

I know the security theatre I'm hearing about in the US airports has kept me away for the last decade. On two occasions I found ways to get around going there for work trips and at another point decided the USA may not be such a fun place for a holiday at the time. The TSA would find me boring but I'm sure they would still find some ways to make my visit unpleasant.That's just my opinion but I've got an idea that others share it.

Don't worry, by lowering the standards for screening aircraft personnel, the military and now families of military personnel we're assured to get the most sexual assaults and humiliations without the risk of actually having an effective security screening process.

It's relevant because a lot of us think that TSA employees are pedo creeps and other types of perverts and something like that just reinforces the notion that perhaps we shouldn't let non LEOs engage in those sorts of screenings.

His type = pedophiles. For some odd reason, most of them seem to be more interested in little boys than little girls. Not sure if it's availability (like with Catholic priests, who have pretty easy access to little boys who were altar boys, though this has changed, I remember seeing altar girls way back when I was still going to Catholic church when I was high school in the early 90s) or what.